


As Red As Any Blood

by gardnerhill



Series: The Vermilion Problem [7]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Blood and Violence, Bogeyman, Christmas, Community: watsons_woes, Gen, Other, Vampire Sherlock, Watson's Woes WAdvent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 05:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13140453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Sherlock Holmes may be a blood-drinking monster, but there is one thing he won’t do.





	As Red As Any Blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [okapi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/gifts).



> **Warning** : Contains blood, violence, and supernatural abominations. You know, traditional Christmas stuff.

My friend Sherlock Holmes had never been reticent to reveal the ways of his strange and terrible kin, from the first night I had discovered his true nature (a dog’s corpse in his arms, blood dripping from vampiric incisors, eyes wide with fear in my candlelight). Possibly because I showed no fear at that revelation and refused to change the way I regarded him, I was the first mortal man he had befriended in his long existence, and he was happy to tell me anything I wished to know. These conversations only became more frequent when our connection became irrevocably sealed in a very literal blood pact (I had rescued him, captive and starving, from the hunter Irene Adler, and had fed him from my own veins to restore his vitality); from that day we were a wedded couple in all but law, and like intimate spouses we shared our innermost confidentialities, often after he had sated himself and lay at peace in my embrace. (Rather, it is more accurate to say that Holmes _shared_ his secrets whilst he continued to _deduce_ mine, often to my irritation.)

One such occasion fell in mid-December, a few years after we had begun to share lodgings. The icy and toxic fog outside had kept the pair of us housebound, sharing the warmth of the hearth fire as well as that of my haemoglobin, when he expanded on his negation of a fallacy regarding the lore surrounding his kind; namely, the ability of Christian emblems to ward off such fiends.

“By itself, a church building is no protection, Watson. Nor are we frightened away by crosses or crucifixes,” Holmes expounded, his black-haired head pillowed on my freshly-bandaged forearm. At such times, with my friend endearing and terrifying at the same time, I felt as if I stroked a tiger’s ears, and marveled at my own audacity. “Such emblems on their own are mortal talismans and hold no dread for us. If, however, the priest or minister is a hunter, is wise enough to keep at least one silver-spiked candleholder close by, and knows how to wield holy water, that is another matter.”

“So holy water is deadly?” I asked.

“Poisonous to touch, drink, or ingest,” he confirmed. "It is this fact that leads me to surmise that creatures such as I are Lucifer’s progeny. Ah, you are a loyal friend, Watson, but even you cannot deny such a thing.” He laughed a little, for he had clearly seen me bite back the automatic denial I’d wished to make.

In an attempt to leaven the conversation, I added, “Then all we need do is watch for the churchgoers who avoid crossing themselves, should we need to track down such a fellow in a chapel.”

Sherlock Holmes went still – and nothing is more still than a creature with no natural breath nor heartbeat; save for the residual warmth within him, the man could have been lying dead in my arms.

I could not resist a shudder at the sensation, and fear at why he’d done so. “Holmes? Have I offended?”

“Not at all, my dear fellow,” he responded immediately. “But any crimes committed in a church are the sole province of the police – and possibly yourself, if you wished to attend solo. I have not set foot in such places since I first was turned not long after the Conquest.”

Inanely, my first thought was of the architectural changes since the days of the abbeys, and the glorious arches and stained-glass windows in the latter edifices which Sherlock Holmes had never seen with his own eyes. “Not even for a case?”

His voice was exasperated rather than angry. “Watson, I have committed enough foul deeds in defiance of God and Christ throughout my time – beginning with matricide, I must remind you – that I will not test either’s ability to forgive by desecrating a house for their worship with my presence, even to solve some mortal puzzle that might remove a small dram of evil from the world. I pride myself on avoiding hypocrisy as much as I can.”

“Of course.” Moved by this show of character more than I wished to let on, I busied myself by re-examining the bandage Holmes had applied to my wrist; it hid the neat double-slit he had made in the vein with his incisors before feeding, and I would be able to remove the dressing in less than a day. “Perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to have a proper case on Christmas Day instead, Holmes.”

“Pah!” Holmes waved a long thin hand with an air of exasperation. “Even the criminals of London keep Christmas, and there is nothing to interest the consulting specialist. A spate of ordinary robberies and burglaries are not worth my attention.” He traced the length of my forearm, just above the bandage at my wrist. “And the cutthroats of the docks and slums no longer hold any allure for me.”

I covered his cooler hand with my own. “I should hope not.” I made myself sound as much like an indignant wife as I could, and was rewarded when I heard him laugh. Before he had been taken captive by Irene Adler, Sherlock Holmes had prowled the worst streets in this city, seeking a meal among the unrepentant and unpunished killers who lurked in such places, and did London more good than harm by consigning such men to his clutches and then the Thames. But now the thought of him taking sustenance from anyone but me was intolerable to both of us – I would indeed feel fully as betrayed as a scorned spouse.

Early in the morning a few days afterward Billy brought up a telegram from Hampshire, from an Inspector Wilkins. The missive briefly described the discovery of a local man’s body in a bizarre attitude on the village green not far from the sole pub in one of the many small towns dotting that landscape. The strange image of the dead man had compelled the inspector to contact the specialist.

“Apoplexy can cause contortions,” I mused. “Or a heart attack.”

"Possibilities, both. Still, it’s the best offer we’ve had in a week.” Holmes smiled at me. “In any case, the air in that district is cleaner than London’s – you may walk outside without risking your lungs, Watson.” He reached for a telegraph form and called for Billy as I rose to pack for the upcoming trip.

***

Inspector Wilkins, a man who displayed the fleshy softness of a country policeman with little to do, met us at the station and filled us in on the circumstances of the find during our ride to the village. Holmes was right; the air of this tiny town was cleaner and clearer than in the city, if a brisker cold though snow had not yet fallen. It was mid-afternoon and light still lingered; the trap-driver had not yet lit his lantern. “Lindsay Starret,” Wilkins said, his breath puffing out in mist. “The postman. Solitary chap, but a good fellow and liked by his friends. Not the type to overdrink or disturb the peace. Had his two pints and made his farewells about half eight. Hour later George Miskin, one of his pals, heads for home and finds him. Ran straight to my house and banged on the door, what with the hour and all.”

If a solitary pub did not tell me how tiny this hamlet was, the village common that was smaller than many private yards of London houses served just as well. The corpse was still at the crime scene, watched by three constables at a careful distance who were occupied in keeping back a cluster of both milling villagers and lowing cows who’d been evicted from their grazing patch.

“Death by strangulation plain and simple, Mr. Holmes,” Inspector Wilkins continued. “But the poor devil was moved like this after he’d been killed – that’s why I asked for you.”

I gazed down at the unfortunate man in the fascinated horror that often accompanied our work. Starret’s body was contorted and spread-eagled as if he had been trying to mimic a pinwheel, hands pointing in two different directions and legs twisted in like fashion. The dark red line straight across the corpse’s throat corroborated Wilkins’ verdict.

“Exemplary work in preserving the scene, Inspector,” said Holmes. I agreed with my friend, for the footprints in the grass near the body were clear and distinct – not the muddy churn of a rugby scrum that was all too often our lot with club-footed police and gawkers at such a site. Holmes focused on the trodden ground. “Two men – one set of boots is a touch smaller than the others.”

“What kind of mad bastard could do that to a body?” one young-looking constable said; I envied the youngster’s naiveté, having seen enough in wartime and on the streets of London to answer at length if I chose.

“Wasn’t robbery – his chequebook was untouched,” Wilkins said.

Holmes’ quicksilver eyes looked along the trajectory of the bent-back head, and returned to the hands that the murderers had taken pains to make point. “Right hand toward the church,” Holmes looked up the hill from the grounds, resumed, “and the left, a particular small farm along that road. Head, that copse to the side of the churchyard. Feet…” he looked along one side then the other. “Left heel, the pub, left toe the tea-shop. Right heel, a postal box of another farm, right toe that oak.”

“We looked,” Wilkins said. “The church, the tea-shop, up the bloody oak-tree and all. Nothing out of place. No note nor trace nor sight.”

“Perhaps some note or trace or sight will reveal itself with a fresh pair of eyes,” Holmes replied. “Let us begin with what the head and right hand tell us. Watson, if you would be so good as to start on the church interior whilst I take the copse.”

Which would permit him to inspect the outer part of the church after perusing the copse, and he could let me know what to look for. I nodded.

“Suppose I could tell you a bit about its history while we go up there,” the young constable said to me, but his eyes never left Holmes as he straightened and headed off, followed by a good number of the bystanders, leaving only one disgruntled policeman guarding the body and the men busy shooing their cows home for milking – not even for murder did a farmer’s work stop.

I hid my smile. What policeman would want to squire a dull old note-taker when they could observe the London specialist in action? “Constable? I think you’ll get an excellent education in detection if you go with Mr. Holmes. I’m quite sure I can find the church by myself.”

“Thank ye sir, thank ye,” and the lad barely touched his helmet before he was away at a trot after the others.

“You’ve light, sir?” the remaining police asked. He sounded indifferent about the big-city detective.

I held up the small dark-lantern that had proven invaluable on many of our trips out of London into sites not as well-provided with street lights. “Yes, thank you, Constable.”

I could hardly miss the church as it was clearly visible at the top of the rise from the green, and a pleasant walk even in the approaching twilight. The doors were open but the place was empty, unlit save for the candles at the entry near empty cups in holders; the minister was very likely that fellow in black among the onlookers who’d followed Holmes, even he caught up in the biggest excitement here in decades.

The parish church was simply but charmingly adorned for the season. The scent of pine boughs combined with the visuals of bright red berries and glossy dark green leaves of holly that lay along windowsills and encircled the bases of the thick candles in large holders that stood cold and at attention near the altar. In a corner was a knee-high wooden crèche, the Nativity figures gathered reverently around an empty manger. Red bows adorned the ends of the pews. A picturesque site to hide a possible clue to murder most foul.

I left off my perusal of the decorations and began my search, I stepped up to inspect the altar and all around it.

The sound of the doors slamming shut made me straighten up, every nerve on alert. But a mortal man’s reflexes are no match for those of Holmes’ kin. Even as I reached for my pocket, icy claws gripped my elbows from behind and wrenched them to my back; I gasped at the pain in my old wound. “Hah,” my assailant said behind me, and his breath was the icy stench of an open grave. “Good afternoon, Dr. John Watson.”

The creature who approached me, the one who’d bolted the church doors, looked like a lean man in a black suit with a flat black hat over shoulder-length silver hair; but then he grinned, and the ends of his mouth reached past his ears and disappeared behind his head, displaying a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. He said something in a Slavic-sounding language.

“My friend Mr. Piotr Czarny is visiting from Poland.” The vampire’s voice was as suave, his accent as upper-class English as was Holmes’. As were both Holmeses...

“You are a member in good standing at the Diogenes Club.” I kept my voice as level as possible.

“Sir Jacob Tanner, philanthropist,” the vampire said as if we were at a party. “I’m sure you’ve heard the name – I run several of the largest charity-houses in London.” The amused tone made my blood run even colder, for Holmes and I knew all too well the horrid reputation of such badly-misnamed cesspits of disease and want – gorged with gaunt orphans and discarded children, maddened war-veterans, haggard young prostitutes leaving their babies to return to the streets even as most of the little mites died of the illnesses their mothers bequeathed them. Such houses of misery, where death came more frequently than meals, would be a stocked fish-pond to such an unnatural angler as Sir Jacob Tanner. “My friend is here for the holidays, also a club member. Too many children in his own country have been good this season, so he is here to feast on the wicked little things England produces in such abundance.”

“Little ones, yes,” the lank-haired man in black said in heavily-accented but clear English, eyes like the moon. “The Holy Night.” Again that horrifying grin that spread round the _bubak_ ’s head and showed his buzz-saw teeth. “Bad children delicious.”

“Bad” – yes, hungry street-lads stealing apples, and their sisters selling their virtue for bread, were sneered at by too many as irredeemable sinners (often by wealthy people whose own spoilt offspring indulged in willful destruction and cruelty out of boredom). No doubt he planned to take his pick among the neglected children of this fiend’s charity-houses.

“A small town for such a harvest,” I threw all my contempt into that reply, through the wrenching pain and the fear sleeting through my veins. They were talking instead of killing me, or beginning any kind of torture; I resolved to keep them talking.

I could not help shuddering at the Polish creature’s touch as he patted my pockets with his big hairy hands. He removed my revolver. “Stink,” Piotr Czarny said, cradling the Adams in both hands, awkward as a dowager would be holding such a thing.

“Silver. No wonder you reek of it,” the vampire snapped. “You’ll find no help in here either, mortal.”

My heart sank as I thought of the empty holy-water cups at the entrance. I’d thought the sexton had been in the middle of refilling them.  
  
“We’re not here to gnaw on a few farm brats. Your head will be Mr. Holmes’ Christmas present when we return to London.” My captor’s icy hands shook very lightly – a sign, I knew all too well, of ravening blood-hunger. “We remove his enemy, and free his younger brother of your grip forever.”

New club members, both, clearly new members – I combed out the threads of rational thought past the gibbering terror of what they wished to do to me, deducing. They thought that killing me would please Mycroft Holmes, who hated me, and bring Sherlock Holmes to his senses from what they saw as enthrallment by a mortal man. Which meant… “You two killed Starret? That poor postman? Just to make a puzzle to lure us out here?” I voiced outrage as well as fear. Lure us away from London – and me into the one place Sherlock Holmes would never go, something they must have learned at the Diogenes.

“In London our founder would be honour-bound to aid his brother in protecting your stinking mortal soul from harm.” This fellow sounded very proud of himself. “Piotr came up with the plan.”

“Nice place, very far away London,” Piotr said. “Maybe get one, two children first before go back.”

God clearly had not forsaken me, for He had sent these two amateur monsters to capture me. Green recruits boasted at length; old and sure soldiers simply took their shot. They gloated over their kill like a kitten playing with a mouse instead of dispatching me at once the way a seasoned fiend would.

I gasped as the grip tightened cruelly on my arms, shaking hard. “ _Now_. I’m famished,” the vampire said. “We had to leave every drop of blood in that dead pig down there. What a waste.”

He wanted to feed on me.

I was too afraid to make the grim smile I felt. I’d once said something to Mycroft Holmes, purely based on instinct, and from his reaction I’d struck true. Now to test the truth of that phrase.

Icy fingers stroked my carotid artery. Fear again; a puncture there would be fatal, from vampire teeth or steel knife or any instrument.

Not fear. Cowardice. Give them _cowardice_.

“Please,” I whispered. “Just not my wrist.” I made myself whimper. “That vein… that was ours. Sherlock’s and mine. It’s special. Just for us, that place.”

I was truly blessed with the gift of incompetent adversaries; the idiot leaped into the briar patch with both feet, and actually cackled like a stage villain at the thought of desecrating something.

I gave a choked cry as Sir Jacob torqued my forearm and exposed one wrist; true to my word, it was well-marked with fine white scars from scalpel and tooth both. “An _hors d’oeuvre_ before the entrée,” he said, and stabbed his incisors brutally into my wrist. The pain was horrendous and I bit back another cry. The _bubak_ chuckled, his dreadful grin stretching round his head. Ice swirled up my veins as the greedy vampire sucked voraciously; my blood flooded his mouth.

And I was free as Sir Jacob let go of me, shrieking in agony so high that the candles and windows vibrated. Piotr Czarny started back, alarm and fear in those moon-pale eyes. My blood sprayed from his mouth like water from a whale’s blowhole, covering everything in front of it including my back and the _bubak_ ’s front, and Tanner dropped to the ground.

Heedless of the vampire curled in a tight ball behind me and writhing in agony as he clawed at my blood smeared across his mouth, I flew across the space between us and backhanded the _bubak_ with my non-bleeding wrist. As I’d surmised, its awkward handling of my revolver bespoke an inability to confront an opponent bigger and more formidable than a frightened child. Mr. Piotr Czarny fell to the ground with a cry like a wailing babe. I retrieved my gun, dribbling blood from my torn wrist across the floor and top of the altar, and turned on the vampire.

But I had no need to fire three deadly silver shots. Sir Jacob Tanner was half-decayed already, jaws gaping from where he’d torn his mouth away from his own teeth in his convulsions.

Piotr the _bubak_ had staggered to his feet, rage turning his eyes white and pupil-less. “What you _do_ him, pig?” he screeched, towering over me and still spattered with my blood. Was it my imagination that he seemed taller?

“He did that to himself,” I replied scornfully to the child-stealer, gesturing with my still-bleeding wrist. A bogey-man was powerless before someone who was unafraid. “I am not Sherlock Holmes’ pet, nor is he under a spell I cast. The correct word, you horrendous beast, is _love_ – and the proof that love kills those who cannot comprehend it is your friend here, poisoned by blood made to sustain only two people and no others.”

“You wish frighten me?” Piotr snarled – though his bared teeth and open eyes indeed bespoke fear as well as rage. With every heaving breath he did indeed grow taller and taller, stretching over my head. “Stinking silver not kill me!”

A splash struck his back, and a few cool drops hit my own cheek. Not blood. Water.

Piotr Czarny arched back with a sound like a baby’s scream, steam rising from his wet back with a stench of river sludge. He turned, and both of us saw behind him.

Sherlock Holmes stood there in the light of my lantern, standing at his full height and beyond rage, eyes like pure steel. A vial was clutched in his hand. “Holy water, however, will,” Holmes said with all the icy contempt of facing down a sniveling henchman of a crime boss. “You should have declined Jacob’s offer and stayed at the Club, Czarny.” One of his feet moved out of the way just as a last drop fell from the lip of the vial.

The _bubak_ wailed, shrunk, dwindled, shifted; and where a stretched-tall man had stood, a black cat fell dead beside the contorted, crumbling corpse of Sir Jacob Tanner.

For a moment I only stared at the sight of Sherlock Holmes in a church. Then my eyes fell on the vial he held, and how very careful he was to avoid touching the last drop hanging at its lip, and could not say if the chill up my spine was from realisation or blood-loss. But his eyes were only for my bleeding wrist, and a heartbeat later his cold hands were wrapped firm around the wound, the vial discarded.

I looked around at the building, the altar whose cloth Holmes now wrapped around my torn wrist – it had been irretrievably stained anyway – the two foul corpses, and the bent head and shaking hands of the only other who bore rightful claim to my blood. “Let’s get you out of here,” I said softly, and touched his elbow with my unwounded hand.

Together, him still holding my wrist, we walked outside to cries of fear and horror from the villagers, the police and the minister. “The murderers have been brought to justice,” I called. “I’m afraid I may have stained some of the woodwork within, Reverend.” Wilkins and the minister together stepped in to deal with the ghastly aftermath, and Holmes’ glare kept everyone well away from the pair of us as we made our way down the hill, back toward the inn and my Gladstone bag.

Once Holmes had stitched and bandaged my wound and I had a badly-needed wash, I was pleased to discover that the pub had a strong local porter and a decent beefsteak, and I rebuilt myself while Holmes cut up the food for me to eat one-handed. The other patrons gave us a wide, fearful berth.

Sherlock Holmes did not feed from me that night; but in our inn room he clung to me in the narrow bed and did not let me go as I fell into an exhausted sleep.

***

We stayed a few more days, to let me recuperate in the clear country air. I went for walks in the surrounding countryside; Holmes walked with me, his fore-and-aft travelling cap shielding his eyes from the weaker winter sun. I attended (solo) the small service the minister held to re-sanctify the violated church; the pair of us stood behind the mourners at the burial of Lindsay Starret in the little yard behind, under a patriarch of an oak tree. The air grew colder and promised snow to come.

The day after the funeral I went for one last walk with Holmes; we were determined to return home the next day as I had rapidly regained my vitality. Holmes had been nearly wordless since the night of the attack. I had deduced the reason for that reticence and it had nothing to do with him breaking his promise to himself.

“I am fully aware that Mycroft hates me, Holmes,” I finally said, watching a squirrel still busily storing acorns. “But I also know he would never have set those dogs on me.”

Holmes nodded, and his shoulders dropped a little. “If Mycroft wished you dead he would break your neck himself. He genuinely enjoys such work and would not consider delegating it.”

“I’m honoured.” Holmes smiled at my wry tone despite the grim subject. “No, I suspect these chaps made the same error as Henry II’s murderous guardsmen, or hoped to curry favour with their club’s owner by bringing him an extravagant Christmas gift.”

“So we spared those two an even worse demise at Mycroft’s tushes, had they been successful,” Holmes replied. “Mycroft and I may be unforgivable hellspawn, Watson, but we still retain our sibling regard. He will not take my death lightly. It is for that reason that he hates you so.”

I had not yet quizzed him on the vial. Now, hearing his words, the ice returned to my spine that I had felt that night at the altar. I passed the squirrel and walked across the meadow, following tracks and droppings of the wild ponies that populated the forest; I found speaking of profound matters easier if accompanied by something physical. “Holmes. You have still not explained the contents of your pockets, grateful though I am for your assistance at the last. The church’s holy-water reservoirs had been emptied as part of the trap. I have a theory about the reason you would have such an item so readily available that you were able to come directly to me from the nearby copse in the midst of an investigation.”

A long silence as we crunched through old branches and long-dropped acorns. His voice was his usual cool level tone. “Sit. See for yourself.”

A low stone wall ringing the churchyard was at a comfortable height to sit; when I had done so, Sherlock Holmes produced a morocco-bound case, about half the length of his forearm, from his rucksack, and handed it to me. Puzzled, I opened it, and gaped to see a glass syringe nestled in blue velvet, accompanied by three glass vials. A fourth spot for such a vial was empty. Two vials were full of a clear liquid; the third held a pale yellow granular substance. It looked like an addict’s kit for injecting morphine or cocaine. But that was not the colour of either drug… I pulled out the vial of yellowish powder and noted how Holmes stood back a half-step as I uncorked it. Even before I’d brought it all the way to my nose I detected the reek of garlic.

This was not a casual brush with self-destruction; this was a plan.

I recapped the garlic powder and resettled it in the case, latching it shut. Only then did I raise my head and fix Holmes with the same glare I’d given him when I’d first caught him feeding on poor old Skip. His own expression was calm, unrepentant. “You do not strike me as suicidal.” My tone was sharper than I’d meant. “This case is new, the velvet still plush. Is this a new development, the desire to keep the instruments to end your own life?”

“Existence, Watson, existence!” His own tone was as sharp as he gestured. “My _life_ ended before the Bastard landed at Pevensey, at the teeth of the creature who turned two pious brothers into parent-killers. I spent centuries indifferent to death when I did not actively revel in it. I stared down silver-headed pikes held by brave men and felt nothing but satiation as I drained them. I watched the Great Mortality slay more people in a few years than our entire race has done in a millennium, not once but twice. There was only the hunt, then the puzzles to keep my mind sharp, then my discovery of my gift for observation and deduction, at first to select only those prey animals whose deaths would benefit my home more than they deprived it – murderers and ravishers and robber barons who’d escaped the grip of the law only to find me. It was a _game_ , Watson, a damned _game_ I played.”

His face was angry, his words were angry, but his eyes told what was deeper. “Then one day I met a man who faced me, unarmed and afraid but righteous in his courage, when he discovered my true nature. A man whose first instinct upon being presented with undeniable proof of his colleague’s monstrosity was to give his lifeblood though he feared it would mean his own death. In taking that first draught given in selfless love, I felt grief for the world’s sake once again, after centuries of indifference to its suffering. In that moment I ceased to be a gameplayer and a puzzle-solver, and truly became a detective who wished to see justice done.”

Behind us a few brash wild ponies wandered the churchyard, grazing between the headstones and nibbling on the flowers; not even holy ground was exempt from the denizens of this forest.

Holmes’ voice was as cool and level as if he recited a mathematical equation. “You are mortal, Watson, and some day you will die. You know how our kind makes more of us – by forcing our victims to drink their own hell-tainted blood from our veins. I will never turn you, John. It is your mortal courage and fear that I first loved in you, and that I love most about you. And I find that I cannot bear to contemplate returning to the creature that I was before. When you die, I will follow suit.”

I stared down at the deadly case. He had entered a church for me. “Your great brain, that is such an asset to the world,” I said, inanely, grasping at the vastness of what this person offered. “Your centuries of knowledge. Your brother’s society. These were all yours long before I was born. You saw this forest new-planted. And you will simply end yourself when I take my last breath in a mere handful of decades, if I am very lucky to live that long.” No wonder Mycroft hated the creature who’d condemned his younger brother to death.

“I was a fiend for all of that time, save a mere handful of years,” returned Sherlock Holmes. “You felt the change the first time we shared your blood. When I’d been starved before, I needed to quaff three grown men to their deaths to satisfy me – and that was as nothing to that little draught from your vein. I will not return to being the indifferent creature who sees humanity only as puzzles or prey, and whose meals are taken in terror and hatred. No, John. I have tasted love, and I will not let that memory turn into grave-soil in my mouth. The day you are buried is the day I will become the first measure of earth to cover your coffin.”

His immortality. I had never been given such a monumental Christmas present in my life.

Anything profound I could say would devolve into sentiment, and we’d both had quite enough of that. So I nodded as briskly as I could, and handed the case back to my friend. “Well, then. I’d best keep myself alive as long as possible, hadn’t I?”

“I would appreciate that, my dear Watson,” Holmes replied, with his own relief in his tone. He helped me off the wall and we headed back to our rooms.

“If you find you can bear the experience, old man,” I said, “you really ought to see the interior of Yorkminster. It is a spectacular work of art.”

Sherlock Holmes was silent for a few paces. “Perhaps a compromise, Watson. If ever a murder is committed within Yorkminster, I shall indeed go inside, to assist with the investigation.”

“How old does the murder have to be?” I asked innocently. “Canterbury Cathedral is famed for–“

And there was his laugh that I had not heard for a week.

“Enough talk of churches! Save of course for whichever parish you will visit for Christmas services this week.” My vampire turned and gave me a very severe look. “And if you say a prayer for me, my dear Watson, I shall be extremely put out.”

I patted his shoulder. “Not a one.” A man had his pride, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 25th day (aka Dec. 25) of the 2017 WAdvent Calendar.


End file.
